Today's computer systems and portable electronics are becoming increasingly sophisticated, permitting users to perform an ever increasing variety of computing tasks at faster and faster rates. The size of the memory and the speed at which it can be accessed bear heavily upon the overall speed of the computer or portable electronic system.
Memory is technically any form of electronic, magnetic or optical storage; however it is generally divided up into different categories based in part upon speed and functionality. Depending on the read and write characteristics, memory can be divided into two categories, random access memory and read-only memory. Read-only memory is also known as write-once memory.
Generally, the principle underlying the storage of data in a magnetic media is the ability to change, and or reverse, the relative orientation of the magnetization (i.e., magnetization orientation) of a storage data bit (i.e., the logic state of a “0” or a “1”). The coercivity of a material is the level of demagnetizing force that must be applied to a magnetic particle to reduce and or reverse the magnetization of the particle. Generally speaking, the smaller the magnetic particle the higher it's coercivity.
With respect to magnetic memory components, it is known that as size decreases coercivity increases. A large coercivity is generally undesirable as it requires a greater electrical field to be switched, which in turn requires a greater power source and potentially larger conductor. Providing large power sources and large conductors is generally at odds with the focus of nanotechnology to reduce the necessary size of components. In addition, to mitigate the potential of inadvertently switching a neighboring memory cell, nanometer scaled memory cells are generally more widely spaced relative to their overall size than are non-nanometer sized memory cells. Moreover, as the size of the magnetic memory decreases, the unused space between individual memory cells tends to increase.